Exclusive: Coco Rocha Wants You To Know She Is Not A ‘Supermodel’

If anyone deserves the title of “supermodel” it is Coco Rocha.

However, she does not see it that way.

“I don’t consider myself a supermodel,” she said when we spoke to her at the press preview of her Cinderella for HSN collection. “I consider myself maybe a top model. If other people give me that title I am honored, but it was a generation.”

Citing flapper dancers as an example, she went on to explain that we might remember the era and can still dance like flappers but it was a generation that can’t be repeated. The same is true of the supermodel generation that included Cindy Crawford, Naomi Campbell, Linda Evangelista, Christy Turlington, Stephanie Seymour and Claudia Schiffer.

“Supermodels was an era, it was a moment,” she said. “It will never return. There will always be famous models and celebrity models, but if you were born in the ’80s or ’90s, you are not. For the girls that are doing well now, they’re doing amazing, but I consider them just celebrity models.”

Rocha, who is expecting her first child this year, also spoke to us about her NYFW experience with a baby bump, her advice for young models and what she thinks about babies at the front row.

On babies in the front row: “I was wondering that. I don’t know, yeah, probably. I have some really great designers friends that would be like ‘I’m going to design a little outfit for your little baby.’ To every show probably not, but there will be one, I’m sure there will be.”

On front row vs. runway: “It’s always a mix. Sometimes I love sitting down and just watching. It definitely is an honor because they could just not invite you. I like to also support the designers that have always supported me, so I try to do that and watch the shows I love. Then there are moments, that I’m like that such a great lineup, love the music this is getting me pumped and I’m ready get on the runway but you can’t.”

On her advice to young models: “Have your identity. Figure out what you want to say because there are thousands of models out there, that’s what makes you different. They’re all beautiful so you have to have something that people go ‘aha! She’s beautiful like the rest of them, but there is something about her that makes me want to use her.’ So whatever that is, whether you speak out or you have a talent that no one else has keep that in mind. Just know that you can say no and people will respect you, but you have to make the first step. It’s up to the girl to take the first step.”